You all know how much I hate these threads, so I'm making another one myself. What can I say? I'm bored.

I stopped by to see Mr Beard yesterday and he started on a small project for me.




There was another (unrelated) work in progress. Not mine.




And because I know someone will ask...

 

What are the heims for?



GB :)

 

traction bars.

moar pictures!

 

Hell to the yea.

Those sliders are gonna look nice on your truck brian. Are you going to color match them, or pain them black

 

Notice I said "unrelated project" for the sliders. As in, very unrelated. They aren't mine. lol
I think those are for James' F150, I don't have any desire for sliders on this truck.

 

They look nice though!

 

lol yea I kinda missed that part. Got a little excited there

 

Woo traction bars! Gonna be nice

 

I get BAD (violent?) axle wrap/wheel hop right now if I spin the tires with a locker and 35s at lower speeds. If I'm already rolling and spin them it is fine, it will just slide the back end around. But from a standstill (or close to it) it feels like it is going to tear the truck apart when they start spinning.

So I stopped by last minute (I was in the area) and Zach had some family obligations in the evening. So he was nice enough to work on them for me, but didn't have time to finish them.

We both had a different idea of how to mount the traction bars to the axle, but we forgot that the u-bolt setup on the F150 is kind of unconventional. We were picturing a mount coming down from under the u-bolts, but on the F150 the threaded part of the bolts are facing down, with a cast piece cradling the bottom of the axle.
You can see what I'm talking about here (not my truck).


I may add air-bags and/or a rear sway bar some time in the future so I didn't want anything that could potentially interfere with those. We decided to make a bracket that would bolt onto the existing u-bolts, below the axle. My u-bolts have a lot more thread exposed. That way it won't interfere with anything else mounting to the axle, and it would be easy to remove or modify. The axle mount will likely use a threaded bung and bushing, while the frame mount will use heim joints. I'm figuring that using a bushing at one end will help isolate noise and vibration a little, and provide a little bit of movement that may help reduce bind.

I also decided to run shorter bars than Zach was originally thinking, after looking at the frame. The length will be somewhere around 43". I don't know how it will affect travel, but I'm not too concerned about it right now. I decided I would rather have the mounts tucked up a little, rather than running a longer length and having them hang below the frame.

 

Looks good Brian. I'm glad you could stop by.

I wish we could have finished it but I suppose it's better this way and I can get all the right material.

 

Dam, I cant see the pics!!! lol

Thanks for taking the pics for me though!! I owe you both, hopefully I will be able to attend a meet one of these days and actually meet you guys! Beer is on me when i do!

 

Hey Brian, what websites are you on? im trying to find some good f150 sites, as all i am a member of is f150online, and to be honest, there are a few good guys over there but most of them seem to have 8" rize lifts with 24" wheels.. Not really my style you know?

Oh BTW, i found a pic of your truck on Google images, it is now my background!

 

Why can't you see the pictures? Need them hosted somewhere else?

 

Yeah, I have trac bars on my Powerstroke, wow did they make a huge difference. My truck just drives better now.

 

I haven't found any good f150 websites, I gave up. There is a little bit of knowledge on f150online when you need it but you really have to dig. I only visit there occasionally to see what's in the classifieds.

 

Truth. Anything I need to actually discuss I just do on here

 

haha yeah, its funny that alot of the guys on here that dont own f150's seem to be more knowlegeble then the guys over on f150online..

and Zach- yeah, the governent computers dont like photo sharing websites, so If they are uploaded directly into R-F, I can see them

 

I put the pictures on my website, can you see them okay now?

 

eh that sucks about the gov restricting that. we will have to try and host them with RF more.

 

Yes sir i can! thank you!!! And those look amazing lol, zach your 250 is a freaking beast!! beautiful truck!!!

Thanks again Brian!!!

 

No problem. When I take pictures with my phone I just upload them to photobucket because it's easy with the app. Just takes a second to download them to the computer and upload them somewhere else.